In the wireless video communication field, there is rarely a uniform standard for video. Various organizations, content providers, device manufacturers, and/or service providers are free to use and support any one or more video standards (e.g., variations in format, frame rate, bit rate, color scheme, etc.), which may at times be incompatible with each other. As a result, systems have been developed to transcode one or more video inputs into multiple unique video streams (each having different formats, frame rates, bit rates, etc.), where the end terminal devices can receive and play back a compatible and supported one of the video streams.
In encoding stations that produce multiple unique video streams from at least one common video input source (e.g., raw unformatted video input), multiple software encoders are provided. Each of these encoders performs their own independent and separate encoding process on the raw video input. For instance, one encoder in the encoding station may encode the unformatted video input into Motion Pictures Expert Group-4 (MPEG-4) video having a 352×288 resolution, 512 kbps bit rate, YUV color scheme, 15 frames/second frame rate, and so on. Another encoder in the encoding station may encode the unformatted video input into MPEG-4 video having a 160×128 resolution, 200 kbps bit rate, YUV color scheme, 15 frames/second frame rate, and so on.
Software video compression or video encoding is a computationally expensive task. The amount of processing power available per software encoding station is the limiting factor on the number of video encodings that can be performed simultaneously per encoding station. The independent and separate processing performed by each encoder results in significant redundant processing, which wastes processor cycles and therefore reduces the overall number of outputs and/or throughput speed of unique video streams.